Tuesday, 24 May 2011

New reviews for Virgin Media's TiVo

If you’ve got a V+ box at present then TiVo is a huge step forward and worth the extra £3 a month for anyone who watches more than the most minimal amount of TV. The interface is improved, the content is easier to find, plus you can record much, much more of it. At present the 500GB box is a much better deal for existing subscribers at £50, with the 1TB box looking overpriced by comparison.

It’s hard to put a score on a device like this, as its pricing and usefulness is inextricably linked to Virgin Media’s other offerings. However, it’s simply a must-have for the vast majority of those on the TV cable service, and a serious weapon in Virgin Media’s armoury to tempt current ADSL and Freeview users into the world of cable services - so we’ve given it our Best Buy award.

Virgin have taken a huge step forward and brought their PVR kicking and screaming into the new decade and while it has a few niggles that need sorting out, it has been worth the wait! I highly recommend upgrading, the disk space alone is worth it if you tend to record a lot of HD. With Tivo prepared to defend their patent portfolio aggressively in court (as shown by their long running court case with Echostar) a lot of these features may never make it to other PVRs and this should give Sky plenty of restless nights.